Thank you all so much for the congratulations comments on my last post, it was very heart-warming to read them. Hoo boy, though, time sure does fly when you’re trying very hard to do nothing. The last week has been pretty busy for someone who was supposedly going to take time off. People to see, houses and cats to house-sit and cat-sit, knitting to do, parties to throw…

I had an absolutely fabulous time at the Purple Purl on Friday night, where Jennifer and Miko were so generous to let me stage a party in celebration of my future non-graduate-student life. I am starting to wonder if Jennifer and Miko are in fact, too generous and nice to be real. Possibly they are secretly working on a plan to take over the world and none of us realize it on account of their overwhelming appearance of niceness.

It was a great night. So many people brought me little gifts which was a wonderful surprise (YAY YARN), and I have to showcase one of them from Kate, who is quickly revealing herself to be a top dyer in disguise:

I gave her my last 2 skeins of Knit Picks ‘Bare’ superwash/nylon sock yarn as they had been sitting stashed for at least a year untouched, to be returned to me in dyed form in exchange for her getting to keep the dyes I’d also had stashed and untouched for that long. She obliged me with a 3rd skein for fun, a canary yellow which would normally be far outside of my habitual colour palette, but which is just soft enough to work. Or at the very least pretty enough to stare at and pet for a while. Awesome job with these colours, K.

I also had people write down their possible answers to the question “what should I do now that I’ve finished my Phd?” There were many fine responses (knitting while lying on a beach, saving the world through craft and social justice, run off and join the circus, open a cupcake shop…) but I must give props to Ladylungdoc‘s winning answer: “Knit a CN Tower cozy, out of handspun, because you can.”

My work is cut out for me. Next post – finally I have some Finished Object pictures to share for the ‘Glowing’ pullover, only a month late!

Thank you again to everyone who helped me celebrate the next phase of my life, both in person and online. Let’s all meet again for tea and marshmallow squares at the Purl.